A Conversation with Willie Nile (continued)

PM: Well, let's talk a minute about "Cell Phones," because it's such an outlandishly good song.

WN: Thank you.

PM: What about the writing of that song? How did that come about?

WN: Well, when 9/11 happened, I was on my way--I think Friday, I was flying to Spain, to Madrid, to do a tour over there. And I was one of the first planes, if not the first plane out of JFK. It was a ghost town. There were just soldiers all over the place, and a handful of people. I mean, it was so strange. And it was still smoldering, obviously.

PM: Holy jeez.

WN: It smoldered for months. So I'm on the runway, looking, and seeing all the smoke and flying over there going, "Man, what a"--still in shock, really. Because I live about a mile from the World Trade Centers, and I heard the second plane hit.

PM: Oh...

WN: And I didn't know what it was, because I had been working, recording the night before. So I was listening to some mix in the morning. And I heard these fire engines going by down my street. I live in The Village. And I thought, "Man, I wonder where those guys are going"--not thinking. And then I was shaving, and I heard this noise, like a real scraping sound. And I heard something loud. And I thought for a second, "That doesn't sound good." But I live in the heart of the Village where there's lots of noise and stuff. I hear all kinds of stuff.

PM: Yeah.

WN: So I didn't think a lot of it. And I walked downstairs ten minutes later, two buildings totally aflame, and the one hole in the first building was so big, I thought, "There is no way they're putting that out." And a buddy of mine, a bass player I played with in the early days, Jeff Hardy, was on the 105th floor, he was executive chef for a restaurant up there.

PM: Jack Hardy's brother.

WN: Right, Jack's brother.

PM: Yeah.

WN: Jeff Hardy, a dear man, with two kids, like a ten year-old and a eight year-old.

PM: And he didn't make it out.

WN: No.

PM: Right. I heard about that.

WN: And it was right there where the plane went in, I think, that's about where he was, 105th floor. But anyway, so I'm flying to Spain, still in shock. And I get to Madrid, and the first night I was really struck by how kind, how caring, how sincere and compassionate everybody was--I mean, it was genuine compassion. They were, "How in New York, Willie--how are the people?" Oh, they were so compassionate, like "Oh, my goodness."

PM: Wow.

WN: Was struck by it, their compassion. So I'm sitting at my desk--well, there was a train bombing, happened in Madrid in 2004. I mean, I forget where I was when I heard about it, but I went--I thought of it, of the many friends I'd met. And I remembered their kindness, their goodwill towards this city and country at the time.

PM: Wow.

WN: And I felt for them. And I felt obviously shock and stuff, and oh, what a world. And I think two days later I'm reading the paper, and one of the headlines was "Cell Phones Ringing in the Pockets of the Dead." And I went, "That's not what I think it is." And sure enough, in reading the article, it said that some 190 or so body bags lined up along the train tracks, and cell phones were going off in all the bags. And the workers were just flipping out and having a tough time dealing with that.

PM: Oh, my God!

WN: And I read that, and it went right through me. And I just turned, and I started--on my computer and started typing away. And I wrote the thing in an hour. No music. And then when I got home with my guitar, I just pick the guitar up and I said to myself, "All right, what do I"--when I was walking home I was still tweaking lyrics, just ablaze with that inspiration.

PM: Yeah.

WN: And I think I wrote the verse--somebody was walking across the street talking on a cell phone, and I was walking home and I wrote that, "Cell phones ring in the middle of the street, history is telling stories that the sailor won't repeat, believers and infidels are fighting in the heat, while bodies of innocent are covered with a sheet. Hey, hey." So I opened up a guitar and wrote the music to it like in--it didn't take me long. That was written very quickly, as a result of a real event in the world. There are a few political things on the album. I mean, you can't not notice stuff going on in the world today.

PM: Yeah, you can't shut your eyes to it.

WN: No. If it works its way into songs, I don't hold it back. What surprised me, when I played it live acoustically at Irving Plaza, were the expressions on all the people. So it was like a throng of people waiting to see this Celtic band, Saw Doctor. It's a great band. And they were like, "Who is this guy? What is he singing?" It seemed to address some underlying fear that is just in the world today. And ironically enough, this past July, I was in Spain again touring. I went back. And we were in the Barcelona Airport, me and the band--a different band. I was touring with Joe Grushecky and the House Rockers. And there was all this activity, and people looking on the TV screen, and the bombing in London subways happened while we were in Spain. It was a trip. So I wrote the song for Spain, for the people in Madrid, I wrote it for the victims, I dedicate it to them, but it could be for London, or wherever next it is. It's so sad. I mean, if everybody got along on this planet, like were friends and we'd try to help each other in all the different countries, it would still be tough.

PM: Right.

WN: It would still be tough. But man makes it so hard. I don't know. Go figure.

PM: While we're talking about songs, tell me a little about the song "Back Home," how that got written.

WN: "Back Home," it's pretty autobiographical, with a few liberties taken. I think I had a verse about Van Gogh that I took out, it was so long as it was. But I came across it a couple months ago, and I thought, "Oh, that's a good verse." But I was just playing the piano. And it just started coming out. It started, "One day I was born"--I'm one of eight children. "One day I was born early on a Tuesday morn, heard Gabriel blow his horn, tryin to find my way...rock the cradle, one of eight, in a hurry, couldn't wait"--I couldn't wait. I'm one of eight kids.

PM: Yeah, I'm one of six--Irish Catholic, too, from Yonkers.

WN: Same here, same here. A similar thing. And it's glorious. I mean, I'm lucky. I'm blessed with a great family. Wherever it came from, I just started writing it down, and it all just came out stream of consciousness, one of those songs that just flows out of you, and then you do some editing later. But I just wrote it at the piano in one sitting, really. And then, over the next day or two, I did some editing on it.

PM: It's a great song.

WN: Thank you.

PM: Are you what you'd call a spiritual guy in any way?

WN: I'd say. I mean, I'm not like any kind of a book totin' anything. I believe that there's goodness in a lot of people. Whether there's a divine thing going on, could be. I mean, when I was at SUNY, Buffalo, I was a philosophy major. And after a couple years, I just was taking all Zen Buddhism courses and stuff. I kind of did that. I thought those guys had a pretty good line on what was going on on the planet. But I'd say yes to that. I mean, I'm skeptical, like anybody else.

PM: Right.

WN: But I think that I have, underneath it all, a feeling that there's something--there's a beauty to the universe that's fierce--it's all of the above. But there's a real beauty to it, and a magic and wonder to it, which--call that spiritual? I don't know.

PM: Yeah, I do.   continue

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